


Understanding

by disillusionist9



Series: Choose Dare [41]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Post-War, Quidditch, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disillusionist9/pseuds/disillusionist9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble #41 of 100 | Returning for her final year of Hogwarts, Ginny starts a Quidditch club including all houses. Even Slytherin, forming an understanding with Blaise Zabini on the pitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

"Fall in!" Ginny called out over the high winds whipping through the Quidditch pitch.

A small crowd of people huddled together across from her; none of them were decked in their house colors today, favoring the black and white winter gear stored in the locker rooms. It only took a moment for Ginny to scan the crowd and note that every house was represented at her practice, since she had protected many of the children in front of her from the Carrows the year before.

One notable face had appeared for almost every practice she hosted since the beginning of the second term. He was the tallest of them all, and cut a striking figure against the little first and second years grouped at his knees; first years, who were held at home for their protection, or were too young to experience the horror Hogwarts was for two hundred and forty three days.

"Today we are doing Chaser drills," she commanded, willing her voice above the weather without the use of a Sonorus. "And we will be flying in the air space between the stands and the teacher's boxes. This is where the most turbulence will happen on the pitch with the wind changing direction every few feet, and that is a blink of an eye while you're on a broom."

She pointed to the guardrails by the stands and pulled a sheaf of parchment from her cloak pocket. A swift, wandless, Wingardium Leviosa sent it to the east side of the pitch as her class watched from the north end. For the next several minutes, she instructed the students on weather patterns, and how to check the direction of the wind without the aid of magic or a convenient piece of parchment. A wave of giggles from the younger students broke the tension, the apprehension at flying in less than stellar conditions.

Her flying club, started at the quiet behest of Madam Hooch, reminded Ginny of the DA in the way it grew steadily without any active recruitment on her part. One day she was flying circles around the Keeper poles, with Harry and Ron when they was visiting, and the next she accumulated a league of fans at every practice. The fans grew bolder (the Puffs and Gryffs leading the way) but soon even cautious Ravenclaws joined her group.

When Blaise walked onto the pitch, with not quite a saunter but certainly not watching his feet, Ginny was so engrossed with fixing the finger of a third year was knocked out of its socket by a Bludger she didn't notice her first Slytherin trainee. The girl was escorted to the Hospital Wing by a housemate after Ginny set the finger, and they continued running drills with a quiet spectre among them. Each practice since, another little Slytherin followed behind him like goslings.

Sweaty, windswept, and grinning fiercely, the troupe of players left the pitch several hours later into their respective locker rooms to clean up for dinner. Ginny clapped a fourth year Ravenclaw boy on the shoulder, commending him for the reverse backflip through a wind gust, shooting him through one of the practice hoops.

"Brilliant," she said breathlessly, pushing him towards the stands with the others.

A small voice rose behind her. "Miss Weasley?"

Ginny paled as she turned to see a dark haired second year, whose name was Drusilla if she remembered correctly, who looked up at her with wide eyes through her goggles.

"Please, call me Ginny," she said, reaching out her hand for the other girl to shake.

Drusilla did, looking at the joined hands with a sort of wonder Ginny was growing familiar with, calling it the _Potter Effect_ in her letters to Neville.

"Ginny," Drusilla said, tasting the name as it left her lips. "Thanks for the lesson today. We didn't get to fly much last year."

Lips thinning even as she smiled, Ginny nodded. "No, I think the Carrows would have spent most of the game dodging Bludgers if that were the case."

A smile wide enough to show most of the girl's teeth lit up her face, resembling a shark, before she laughed and ran towards her housemates.

"Care for another lap?"

Ginny almost felt dizzy as she turned again at the sound of a voice behind her. This one, oh, this voice was rich like warm carmel rapidly cooling atop a scoop of Fortescue's. She could raise her voice above a howling windstorm without it getting swept away but this voice, it dug beneath the wind and into a person's bones to take root so there could be no misunderstanding.

How had she never heard him speak before?

"You're on, Zabini," she said, swallowing the knee-jerk clenching of her stomach at the sight of a built man in full Quidditch gear. Standing so close to him, she could make out the tiny imprints of scales on his dragonhide air-armor, the only indication that what he wore could recreate Bill and Fleur's wedding twenty times over.

After the next practice, he quirked an eyebrow in question, and though she flushed from the ache to hear him speak again, she returned her answer just as silently, leaping into the air after the last student left the pitch.

The fourth time they shot into the air in tandem, blurs of black and grey across the white snow.

By the first warm day of spring, the one that reminds you why you suffer through the winter in the first place, they had an understanding of sorts, running drills more complicated than she was willing to show or teach to the younger years. Easter was a wonderful retreat to family and friends away from exams and looming graduation, and there were so many pickup games of Quidditch she fell to bed exhausted each night, but she missed the crack of green robes and the flash of white teeth circling around her.

When he received his recruitment letter, she was the first one he told.

When she received hers, he laughed with such joy as he hugged her, she did not stop smiling until she physically couldn't.

By graduation, they sat only a chair away from each other, organized alphabetically. The arrangement made it much simpler to squeeze each other's hands tightly against the anticipation, the excitement, of the dawn of their future creeping over the horizon.


End file.
